


Different Ways to Fall

by SeventhAgent



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: But the practical jokes are eventually more awful and depressing than funny, Chara and Asriel Growing Up, Chara has trauma, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gender-Neutral Chara, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Hurt/Comfort, Other, POV Third Person Limited, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Pre-Canon, WD Gaster is Best Skeledad, Young Skelebros
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-12 20:22:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5679517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeventhAgent/pseuds/SeventhAgent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the first fall, Asriel Dreemurr was there for Chara from the very beginning. Getting into scrapes, sneaking into all kinds of places they shouldn't, playing the occasional nasty prank...it was all so much fun at first. But as time passes, Asriel begins to wonder whether his best friend is teetering on the edge of something horrifying...and if there's anything he can do before it's too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Two Coffins for Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> 1.) First fic I've written in a long while, so I'm sort of testing the waters here. I love Undertale, and I'm glad to see such a huge fandom's sprung up around it! I hope you guys like this enough to want to see more of it!  
> 2.) Title of first chapter and a few lines are referencing "Two Coffins," by Against Me!. It's a fantastic song, and I couldn't recommend it more.

            It was the fireplace night that made Asriel realize it—made him realize that he'd been wrong about Chara. He saw it in the way Chara shook as they curled up into a ball, picking at their baggy shirt and staring into the flames. Heard it in the chattering of Chara's teeth, in the crackle of the firelight. Could smell it faintly under the strong scent of burning wood, the way Mom could sometimes.

            “Hey,” said Asriel. He swallowed. Chara did not look up. The firelight flickered, drowned out the light of the false-stars through the window. “It's me. Asriel.”

            Chara took a deep, hissing breath.

            “Your best friend,” said Asriel weakly.

            “Hello.”

            “Yeah, hi. You, um. You...” _Were crying in your sleep, or whining, or making some awful noise,and I was so scared_. “...you didn't seem so good. You got up and went out here, and I wanted to see if you were alright.”

            “I had a dream.”

            “Yeah?”

            Chara nodded. Asriel sat down beside them.

            “Coffins,” said Chara, and the fire gleamed in their amber eyes as they spoke. “We weren't in beds, Asriel. Two coffins for sleep. One for you, one for me. And they were so...” Chara glanced at Asriel, then at their feet. “so _comfortable_. It was just me and you, Asriel. Just us and time.” Chara shivered. “But it was cold. I wanted to be warm, so I lifted the lid and I walked out here.”

            The fire crackled. Asriel released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

            “It was just a nightmare. You used to have nightmares all the time, when we were little. So you had another one—so what?” Asriel held out his hand and smiled.

            Chara's hand twitched, but they turned away to watch the flames. “That's what scares me, you know? It wasn't a nightmare. It wasn't.”

            “So what was it?”

            And right then, Chara turned and laughed—loud and clacking like a handful of pebbles. “Oh man. Oh _man_. Now _that_ one was good, you know? You really bought that? Asriel, when're you going to stop being such a sap? It's Halloween, you know. I _had_ to creep you out.”

            “That's not right.”

            Chara put their hands on their hips and sighed. “Oh, c'mon. You know Halloween, right? We celebrated it a couple times till Dad said it was 'offensive to monsters.'”

            “I mean, that joke isn't right. Don't do that. I was really scared.”

            “You're supposed to be,” said Chara, flashing teeth.

            “I was scared _for_ you, not _of_ you.”

            Chara's grin died in an instant. “Don't do that. I'm fine, Asriel. I'm _fine_ , you got that? I'm not a little kid anymore.”

            “I never said you were. You just seemed—”

            “Oh. I just seemed...what? Why are you always like this, huh? Whenever I want to do something, whenever I want to maybe twist things around a bit, you just have to be such a wet blanket. C'mon. This wasn't funny at all?” Chara's lips twitched.

            “No,” said Asriel. “It wasn't. I was worried.”

            “Well, stop worrying,” said Chara, standing up. “Because I'm going to sleep. You can be a scared little dork by yourself, got it? I don't need you to say anything to me, and I _don't_ need you to worry about me. It's kind of insulting, honestly. I don't know why you do this kind of stuff.”

            Chara began walking down the hallway, fuming. Asriel opened his mouth to speak and almost said it—almost said that he'd seen Chara rubbing away the last of the tears, heard the sniffling as Chara slipped into another one of their “jokes” before Asriel could get any answers. But Chara was gone now into their room, and there was no way Asriel was going in there _now_. Not when Chara was in one of those moods.

            Asriel sat back in Toriel's chair and glanced at the bookshelf. Three books on humans—he'd counted—and none of them really _said_ anything. Were they all like Chara—just as unpredictable, just as stubborn, just as strange and sad? Maybe so, and maybe not. Whatever the rest of them were, they probably cast Chara out for being so different.

            Or—and this theory scared Asriel half to death—maybe they were just the same. Maybe they were all like that. And if every human was as hard-headed and fickle and sometimes cruel as Chara, no wonder they wanted to get away from it all. They would've destroyed Chara before they even hit thirteen years of age.

            Maybe they'd destroyed part of them already. Every time Asriel thought Chara was getting better, they just turned right around again. Almost never as bad as tonight, sure, but always sudden and always surprising.

            _Two coffins for sleep_ , thought Asriel. _We've got that in common, I guess. Humans...monsters. What's left always goes in a coffin_. He shook his head and smiled sadly. _Look at that. Chara's getting under my skin after all_.

            Asriel tried to sleep that night in Toriel's armchair, like he had as a kid. No good—too afraid to dream about coffins. The memories crashed like waves no matter how he tried to beat them back...

 


	2. The Mysterious Stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Years back, young Prince Asriel goes to his usual spot to get away from it all...and runs into a hell of a surprise.

    “—something amazing: a boy falling out of the sky!”

 

Chapter 2:

The Mysterious Stranger

Far past Snowdin—far past that town on the edge of the underground where the ice nibbled at your fingertips no matter the length of your fur, where the Underriver first trickled down from some crack in the overworld—were the first ruins of the monsters. Sad old stones in a sad old building, thrown together into puzzles in case any invaders decided to climb Mount Ebbott to finish off what they’d started…which, of course, they never did. Important human stuff to do, probably.

Far past those ruins—through fields of spikes and hordes of amicable spiders with a fondness for unusually crunchy cupcakes—was a field of golden flowers. They swayed in the soft, lazy wind of the Underground, synchronized, and when Mom and Dad did not want Asriel around (or when he needed to get away) he could always lie in the bed of flowers and float away. The petals would prickle softly against him, and the smell of buttercups and earth would carry him to somewhere far away.

There, in the bed of soft petals and sweet scents, Asriel would sometimes if it could ever be this comfortable on the surface. Sometimes, in a bad mood, he’d wonder about the ancient wars that everyone talked about but no one wanted to explain. Other times he would dream about climbing the shafts of light that shone through to the buttercups—whether they were daylight or the false sunlight of crystals, he did not care—and climbing the pillars like stairs, poking his head up into the cracks and finding out what was up there.

More often than not, though, Asriel Dreemurr would lie back on the bed of buttercups and think of nothing at all.

A butterfly perched on Asriel’s snout. It flapped its wings, tingling Asriel’s snout and setting off a God-tier sneeze that would’ve knocked him down if he wasn’t already lying in the flowers.

 _Thump_.

Asriel rubbed his eyes. “Oww.”

“Oww,” a voice agreed.

Yellow petals fell through the air, slow-dancing.

“Umm,” said Asriel, because there was no one else there. Because there was _never_ anyone else there, because that’s why he _went_ to the buttercup field. Not that he’d really have anyone to go with anyway—being a prince, there was no one who wasn’t trying to curry royal favor. Nobody to _really_ be friends with.

“ _Owwwwww_ ,” the other voice replied.

Asriel leaned up to look, and froze.

The fur on the stranger’s head. The five-fingered hands, the triangular snout. A fairy tale come to life, standing above him. A human.

Standing above him with a knife, actually. Which was just a _tad_ different.

The stranger’s hair grew wild and brown around their eyes, untrimmed and greasy with grime. Their baggy purple and yellow striped shirt (because, of course, kids are always required to wear striped shirts) was riddled with holes. Asriel squinted—there were little cuts and bruises through the shirt and the ripped jeans, some of them older than others.

The stranger’s eyes shone bright like reddish amber, wide and afraid and bruised around the edges, and they gripped the knife tighter when they saw Asriel looking at them.

“Right, then,” said the stranger. “Okay. Okay, so I don’t think I’m dead.” They bit their lip. “So that means you’re a monster, right?”

Asriel nodded dumbly.

“Neat,” said the stranger, and smiled. Asriel smiled back cautiously. “Don’t take another step or I’ll kill you.”

“Umm.”

“Sorry. I guess that was rude,” said the stranger. “But, uhh. I don’t want you to eat me. I’ve come really far and everything’s been really hard here.” The stranger scratched one of the cuts through their baggy shirt and winced. “So to die seems like a waste of time.” They cracked a lopsided grin.

“You know what else seems like a waste of time? Eating somebody. I mean, that’s just…nasty. That’s not a thing that happens.”

The stranger nodded. “Great. Now, while I appreciate your telling me that, I also see that you’re a monster with huge fangs—” (Asriel picked in his mouth absent-mindedly and was disappointed to find only average fangs) “—and probably an insatiable bloodthirst. So I’m not exactly gonna trust you when you say you _don’t_ eat people.”

“Suit yourself,” said Asriel, shrugging. “Long as you don’t stab me or something—which everybody tells me you guys are so good at—you can believe what you want.”

“’Scuse me?”

“Stabbing things,” said Asriel, making a helpful motion with his hands. “To death. With knives and swords and junk. You stabbed everybody till they stopped bothering you, and built up this barrier. So if you’re afraid I’m gonna eat you—which I won’t, unless you’re made of oatmeal—then I’m just as afraid that you’ll stab me with that knife over there. Which you actually threatened to do.”

“That’s…actually a good point,” muttered the stranger, lowering the knife. “Sorry. I’ve had a rotten couple of days.”

“I know the feeling,” said Asriel.

“No, you _don’t_ ,” said the stranger, voice shaking slightly. “But that’s okay. That’s fine. What’s your name, goat-boy?”

“Prince—” he said before he could stop himself. _Wait, no. Dumb!_ So _dumb. What if he’s part of the invasion force_? “That’s my name,” he added quickly. “Prince. You can call me Prince.”

“Alright,” said the stranger. “My name’s…Chara. You can call me Chara.”

 _You made that up_ , thought Asriel. _Then again, I lied too. So I guess that’s fair_.

“Right. So…what are we going to do now?” asked Asriel.

“I didn’t really think that far ahead,” said Chara, laughing softly. “Uhh. Tell you the truth, I expected to be dead right now. Nobody ever comes back from Mount Ebott.”

“So why’d you climb it?”

“Anyway,” said Chara, “I guess what we do next is up to you. I pretty much showed up on your doorstep, right? So I’m your guest. You’re the host, and you get to figure out what happens to me. Just don’t feed me to any monsters or something.”

“Aw _man_ ,” said Asriel, smiling. “There goes _that_ plan.”

“You’re joking,” said Chara.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.” Asriel stood up. Chara’s knife-hand twitched. “I guess if I’m the first monster you meet, it’s my duty to take you to the King and Queen.”

Ariel extended his hand, shaking slightly. He swallowed a lump in his throat. “So,” he said.

Chara took Asriel’s hand and squeezed. It was cold. Was that how hands felt without fur?

“So,” said Chara, and smiled. It was a grin as bright and cheerful and blank as the sun. “Lead on, Prince.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a rather unpleasant month, hasn't it? Lemmy, Bowie, Rickman within the span of a month. Bowie actually meant quite a lot to me personally, which made it difficult to focus on being creative this past week. But hey, I figure if he can manage to bang out one of his best albums while dying of cancer, I can sure as hell write a fanfic while feeling kinda bummed out. Anywho, hope you enjoyed Chappy 2!


	3. The Skeleton in the Suit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The King and Queen of the Underground receive three visitors who something something pretend that I made a skeleton pun right here. Meanwhile, Prince Asriel and the strange child make their way through the ruins back to civilization...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya, folks! A lot of you guys are going back to school--college, high school, or whatever--and I wish you all the best of luck in your new semester! As for me, I'll be tapping away at this story (and my original fic work) and hoping that you enjoy it all.
> 
> Thanks to Nic and Tonayi for pointing out how I screwed up Chara's gender through a typo. I'm not used to writing characters who aren't explicitly stated to be male or female, and I'm still getting used to that. I've fixed what I could find in the first few Chapters, and I hope I've found all I can in Chapter 3. Also, thanks to GHam for kicking it old school and leaving an honest-to-god comment instead of clicking Kudos. This old FFN warhorse appreciates that.
> 
> Finally, thanks to you--thanks to you for reading this, and I hope that you find my story enjoyable!

“…a plague seems quite reasonable now—or maybe a war! Or I may kill you all!”

Chapter 3:

The Skeleton in the Suit

            Asgore did not like Dr. Gaster, and that was unusual. In all of Asgore’s memory (his long, _long_ memory), there were very few people that he did not like even a _little_ bit. And—well, of course, it wasn’t as if he _dis_ liked Gaster. In fact, Gaster was in many ways an incredibly charming gentleman. Gentlebeing. Gentleskeleton?

            Gaster dressed in a suit, well-fitting and funeral black from the jacket to the undershirt. The bright medal on the lapels almost glowed in the darkness of that suit—“CRT SCNST” on the nucleus of an atom—and Asgore never knew Gaster to take it off, even when the skeleton scientist was decked out in his labcoat. He communicated in hands—not sign language but _hands_ , flicking rapidly or tossing strange images into the empty air between gestures. And as the hands flicked and twisted and turned, you could hear his voice in the wind. Low, baritone, quite polite. Perhaps a bit over-excited.

            All of this might’ve been unsettling to a human. In fact, it was unsettling to many monsters. But Asgore wasn’t bothered by that, per se—you had to get used to a little diversity if you were the Monster King. It was the sensation that prickled up in Asgore’s fur whenever Gaster’s smile (ever present) grew slightly wider, his teeth groaning slightly with the change. The way his eyes seemed to spark whenever he talked about the Core, and the way they dulled whenever Asgore brought up affairs of the state, or when Asgore brought up “ethical concerns.”

            And now here he was on Asgore’s front lawn, adjusting his pin with one hand and making some unheard joke with the other. One of his two skeleton children—Sand or Pepperoni—giggled. Asgore glanced at his formal wear and decided not to even bother. If Gaster wasn’t going to bother with setting up an appointment, Asgore wasn’t going to bother with anything more than lounging pants and a T-shirt.

            “Ah! Your Majesty!” Gaster cried, and the three skeletons bowed deeply. “I’m sorry to intrude. You know how much of a stickler I myself am about protocol. It’s the very _marrow_ of my being.”

            One of the skeleton children let out a low _snerk_. The other rolled his eyesockets.

            “Yes, I know,” said Asgore. Gaster always scheduled meetings at least four months in advance, and sometimes as many as thirteen.

            “Then you understand that I’m only here because I have _extraordinarily_ important business to discuss,” said Gaster, rubbing his hands together and making a hollow _clacking_ sound. “Of course, I brought Papyrus and Sans to make it all up to you.”

            “Did you, now,” said Asgore vaguely. “Erm. Thank you.”

            The shorter skelekid with a thin build piped up—Papyrus, _that_ was it! “YOUR MAJESTY NEED NOT THANK US. WE ARE YOUR HUMBLE AND EXTREMELY LOYAL SUBJECTS. SO LOYAL. IT’S GREAT. ANYWAY LISTEN DO YOU HAVE ANY CANDY HERE?”

            “My dear Papyrus, he’s the king. I’m certain he has _tons_ of candy, provided young Prince Asriel hasn’t eaten it all.”

            “or ketchup,” added Sans. “ketchup and candy sound pretty cool right now.”

            “YOU’RE GOING TO EAT KETCHUP WITH CANDY?!?”

            “yes.”

            “MY BROTHER IS TRULY A RENEGADE.”

            “Asriel seemed to have a delightful time when I had them over on my last visit,” said Gaster. “They’ve been looking forward to seeing him, actually. Where is the boy? Is he here?”

            “He’s out playing with his friends,” said Asgore, which wasn’t quite true. Asriel was certainly out playing, but he never seemed to have friends at all. _Being young and royal_ , thought Asgore. _Always so strange_.

            “WHEN HE GETS BACK, LET HIM KNOW THAT PAPYRUS WANTS HIS REVENGE.”

            “you’ve got to give him credit. he managed to tickle a skeleton. even i can’t figure out how he did that.”

            “I WILL DISCOVER HIS SECRETS. HE SHALL RUE THE DAY THAT HE CROSSED THE GREAT PAPYRUS AND HIS CRAZY MAD BONY TICKLING FINGERZ.”

            “Alright, you too.” There Toriel was, stepping out of the study with that ever-ready smile on her face. Even Asgore, who prided himself on being able to pull out a cheery smile whenever he needed to…even he couldn’t figure out how Toriel did that.

_Because she’s good_. That seemed to be the best answer. _She’s good, and I love her._

“Asgore and Gaster have some important business to attend to. You can play out back in the garden.” She smiled conspiratorially as the two skelekids darted past her. “I’ve got squirt guns. Fluffybuns, I’ll join you two in a few minutes. Don’t have too much fun without me, alright?”

Asgore gulped and glanced at the ever-smiling skeleton scientist. _I don’t think that’s going to be a problem._ “So, Doctor. What seems to be the problem?”

“Oh, it’s nothing _dangerous_ ,” said Gaster, shrugging. “But there’s an off chance—tiny, teeny, debatably _teensy-weensy_ li’l molecule of an infinitesimal chance—that CORE might explode today and annihilate all life. Possibly.”

“Ah,” said Asgore. “Um. Could you…could you go into a little more detail?”

***

            Asriel ran into the first problem just a few minutes after deciding to bring the human home with him—the puzzles.

            It was strange to be in the tile room with someone else. Asriel knew it so well that the rectangle of old stone tiles seemed almost friendly now. The fact that a wrong step could lead to being impaled by a series of deadly steel spikes never really crossed his mind much anymore. But now, with the human—with Chara, as they called themselves—it was new again.

            “What’s taking so long?” said Chara. “Can’t we go?”

            “Do you want to be impaled?”

            Chara thought about it. “Probably not.”

            “Okay. Then tie your boat and plop on the pier.”

            “ _What?_ ” Chara frowned. “Hold my horses, you mean?”

            “No, that’s dumb. You can’t hold horses. You’re too tiny. Stop saying dumb human stuff. As Prince, I command you.”

            “As Chara, I decline.”

            “Traitor,” mumbled Asriel. He stared out at the tile floor and shook his head. “Okay, I’ve got an idea. Take my hand, treacherous human.”

            Chara nodded. Again, that weird sensation of somebody without fur wrapped around Asriel’s hand. It wasn’t bad, just… _weird_. How could someone without fur feel so warm?

            “Now, I’m going to ask you to follow me _exactly_. Got it? Don’t step on any tiles that I don’t step on.”

            “Yessir,” said Chara, bringing their hand up in a salute. “Anything else, my Prince?”

            “Nope. Let’s go.”

            Chara’s hand began to sweat halfway across the room, though from nervousness or heat Asriel could not tell. Asriel’s heart pumped in his long ears. _One step. One wrong step_ , thought Asriel, _and they’re gone. And then what? What do I tell Mom and Dad? Oh, I found the first human to go underground in hundreds of years and oops, I got them impaled. Sorry_! He bit his lip. The image of Chara impaled on a set of spikes flared up in his head and refused to die.

            “Almost there. Just this last tile,” said Asriel.

            Chara’s hand slipped away the moment Asriel set foot on solid ground.

            A scream broke the silence, long and ragged and gurgling. It echoed across the quiet ruins. Slowly, Asriel brought himself to turn around…

            …and found Chara crumpled over, breaking into huge dry cackles. “Oh man. _Oh_ man. I couldn’t resist. I just had to—but the look on your _face_! It was just… _oh man I can’t even. I can’t even at all_.”

            A grin tugged at Asriel’s lips even as the anxiety still gnawed. “Okay, okay. Fine. I guess that wasn’t bad. Just…c’mon, Chara.” Asriel smirked. “Don’t pretend to be doing me a favor. You got my hopes up. I was going to come back to Mom and Dad all conquering hero, you know?”

            “Fine, fine. Next time I die, I’ll do it for real,” said Chara, winking. “How ‘bout that?”

            “I’m not going to _let_ you die,” said Asriel.

            The room fell silent. The last tile creaked back into place as Chara stepped off of it. Asriel’s words hung in the air, suddenly not the joke he intended them to be.

            “Thank you,” said Chara quietly.

            “You’re welcome,” said Asriel.

            “You’re…you’re a good person,” said Chara, looking away.

            The blood rushed to Asriel’s cheeks. “No. I’m…I’m just…”

            “Guess it’ll make you easy to kill.”

And—just like that—the moment was gone again. “Bring it. I’ll magic you to death. Then I’ll use magic to bring you back and magic you to death _again._ ”

“ _Hm_.” Chara smiled. “How sweet.”

***

            “Queen Toriel. Glad you could join us.” Gaster sat in the armchair by the fireplace. The light of the flames licked at his bleach white skull. He flickered between black and white like an old out-of-tune television. “We’re talking about the end of the world.” Gaster stared into the flames.

            Toriel exchanged an eyeroll with Asgore when Gaster wasn’t looking. Always so dramatic.

            “Your children are quite…rambunctious,” said Toriel. “I’ve never seen young ones so serious about squirt gun fights. Sans was squirting into Papyrus’s eyesocket.”

            Gaster chuckled. “Yes. Never underestimate Sans—he’s more of a troublemaker than he looks."

            “This is why I hope the next one is a daughter,” said Toriel, winking at Asgore. “We do not need _that_. Anyway—Doctor Gaster, what were you saying?”

             “I was telling His Majesty about the readings I picked up today. We had an entropy spike, you see, by a full 0.00001%.”

            “With all due respect, Gaster, please do not pause dramatically again,” said Asgore.

            “Of course not,” said Gaster, after a dramatic pause.

            “Gentlemen, _please_ ,” Toriel snapped. “Continue, Dr. Gaster.”

            “There was a chance, Your Majesties, that the multiverse was going to end this morning. A 0.00001% that all of us—the two of you, me, my children, your children, the Underground and the Overworld—that we would all cease to exist and cease to _ever have_ existed. Clearly, this did not happen. We clearly exist, or exist in _this_ multiverse in that wild gush of omniverses that is this side of the two-headed coin we call ‘our window of existence.’”

_Ibuprofen_ , thought Asgore. _I need Ibuprofen. This is going to kill me._

            “What caused it?” asked Toriel.

            “Excellent, excellent. Asgore, our Queen is right on the money! What _would_ cause something like that? Well, I haven’t the faintest idea. The rate of entropy does not just _change_. It is steady. The CORE, you understand, depends on it. The spent energy of various timelines filtering into our CORE, while the energy of _our_ timeline filters into _other_ CORES, quite harmlessly due to the preservation of _ahem_ , sorry.”

            “No apology needed, Doctor.”

            “Thank you. The point is that something has changed, and I don’t know what that something _is_. It nearly destroyed the entirely multiverse—perhaps the omniverse, or the metaomniverse!—and I don’t know _why_. That’s why I’ve come to the two of you. If this threat was something I could isolate, some jump in my statistics that I could rationally understand, that would be nothing. But this is an anomaly, and it is an anomaly that nearly killed us all. It nearly killed your family. It nearly killed mine.”

            “Are you requesting more funding, Doctor Gaster?” asked Toriel. “We have plenty to spare. The mushroom harvest this year has been—”

            “No, no. I’m quite alright in regards to money. I did not come here to beg. I came here to bring a warning. I came here because this—” he dragged his long white fingers through the air across the room “—all of this is in danger. There is no amount of money that can change that. There is no amount of research that I am not already invested in that could change it. I came here, Your Majesties, to tell you that as long as this anomaly exists, everything you love may be torn to pieces at any given moment. That all things pass into the night. That you must hold your children close, for tomorrow you may not be there to hold them.”

            Asgore did not realize he was reaching for Toriel’s hand till he was holding it tightly. “Doctor Gaster. Thank you. I mean that from the bottom of my SOUL.”

            “Merely doing my job, Your Majesties.”

            “ _Still_ ,” said Toriel. “You’re doing it well.”

            The afternoon descended into gossip from there—Flames Hotman did this, Glyde did that, can you believe the new shopkeeper in Waterfall—until Gaster called his children to him. Sans and Papyrus came into the study covered in water, ketchup, and melted candy that left the backdoor rug sticking to Papyrus’s kneecaps.

            “THIS IS ALL SANS’S FAULT.”

            “you’re just jealous because you didn’t think of it.”

            “I’ve got quite the evening ahead of me,” said Gaster. “Your Majesties—heed what I’ve said. Remember it. The world is less solid than it appears. And—PAPYRUS STOP HITTING SANS WITH THAT KETCHUP BOTTLE WHERE DID YOU EVEN GET THAT.”

            “SANS HAD IT.”

             “SANS! Where did you get that?”

            “i did not steal it from ms. toriel. because that would be wrong.”

            “Anyway.” Gaster set the ketchup bottle by the shoes at the door. “Something, something, existential dread. Excuse me.” And the three were out the door, walking across the lawn, disappearing into the streets of New Home.

            “You know,” said Toriel, “I quite like that Doctor Gaster.”

            Asgore twitched. “Definitely, yeah. He is a great guy. Me too.”


End file.
